A night watchman is found dead in the Mummy Room of the British Museum, a look of horror frozen on his face. Before Amelia can respond, a pair of dissolute aristocrats with shady pasts appear in her life, together with supernatural curses. Back in London after an archaeological dig, adventurous sleuth Amelia Peabody--"rather like Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple all rolled into one"--Discovers that a night watchman at the museum has...

Disgusted when he is denied access to the pyramids of Dahshoor, Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson, aided by his archaeologist wife Amelia Peabody, finds his curiosity piqued when an antiquities dealer is murdered and a mummy case disappears.